Sally is British and has lived in the UK all her life. International
\ntravel as part of her work took her to many countries, including
\nPortugal. She fell in love with the place and decided to sell her
\nbeautiful cottage in Malmsbury, Wiltshire, and relocate to Lisbon. In
\nthis article, she tells us of getting her first job.<\/p>\n
I have started work (about time most of you are probably saying!) this
\nmonth. I am teaching at a local international school (20 minutes by car)
\nwhich is great fun. The headmistress has decided that the playground
\nassistants, gardener, porter, cleaners and security staff should all learn
\nEnglish so that they can communicate better with the kids and parents. I
\nhave two classes each Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. The age
\nrange is between mid twenties to late fifties. Two cannot read or
\nwrite! I have one Romanian (who doesn’t read or write), and three
\nUkrainians (one is a qualified engineer working as the gardener, and one is an
\nEconomist working as a cleaner). It is great fun and very challenging as
\nI don’t use a text book because I have to verbalise and visualise
\neverything due to the non reading and writing element. On Monday I took
\nthem all around the grounds of the school identifying objects – they love
\n“small wheelie bin” and “shed”. <\/p>\n
Pronunciation is tricky and the word “fork” does tend to sound
\nlike something else! Tomorrow they have asked for phrases to use in the
\nplayground i.e. “shut up”, “sit down”, “what have
\nyou got there?” etc etc and the cleaners want their cleaning equipment
\nidentified. They can now introduce each other, say who they are, where
\nthey live and what they live in, whether they are married or single, how many
\nchildren they have and how many pets – not bad in three weeks.<\/p>\n
I have also just had an interview with a language school in Sintra and hope
\nsomething might come from that and have another one scheduled for Thursday
\nafternoon with a school about 15 minutes from here – so things might be
\nlooking up. I am also going to advertise English conversation classes to
\nsee what comes from that. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I have joined the IWP – the International Women of Portugal. I
\nthough it might be a good way of meeting new people. I duly trotted along
\nto one of their coffee mornings and wondered whether it had been worth
\nbothering. Most of the ladies grabbed a coffee and bun and headed off in
\ngroups – not quite what I had been expecting. <\/p>\n
One lady did come over and talk and it turned out that her husband worked in
\nthe power industry over here, which was a coincidence as it turns out I spoke
\nto him about two years ago when I was headhunting with my friend Cathy!
\nWhat a small world! Anyway, she invited me over to her house for coffee a
\nfew weeks later which was rather nice. <\/p>\n
Still not too convinced it’s the right thing to belong to, but I will
\npersevere a bit longer. I have also, via an advert in their magazine,
\nfound a brilliant library. It is run by a lady who has converted what
\nwere maids quarters at the back of her villa into this gem of a place.
\nThere are three sections, large print, hardback and paperback – over
\n1,000 in total! And it’s all free. She will not take any
\nmoney for anything. It’s brilliant for getting rid of unwanted
\npaperbacks, tapes, videos etc. She has also got a very good selection of
\naudio tapes. Just listened to second Harry Potter spoken by Stephen Fry
\nwhich was fabulous and the Alan Bennett “Talking Heads”. I
\nmet two very interesting ladies there and have lunch with them at
\nweekends. One of them has lived here for 40 years – she was married
\nto a Portuguese artist and lives in a wonderful old villa with three rescued
\ncats and three dippy dogs. The other lady is fascinating. She used
\nto answer the problem letters in various teenage magazines in the sixties,
\ntyped scripts for someone who made blue movies and is quite a character –
\nvery strong minded and incredibly opinionated which is a bit difficult at
\ntimes!<\/p>\n